"Man of Constant Mailboxes" - David Noah

"Man of Constant Mailboxes" - David Noah: so this guy, swerving, smashed his pickup into our mailbox splintering its post, and ran himself to ground in the ditch by the road

he came out talking so fast no calamity would ever catch him again if he talked that fast if he just explained to someone that he’d once been in a coma for forty-eight days because they thought it was a stone but his appendix had burst and he lifted up his red t-shirt to show me the belly band he wore because his stomach muscles had been whacked by the blast except this one, he said touching a small spot on his side but it was his daughter who worried him right now the one who was the first West Nile virus victim in this state—this said with a wry proud smile—and now she’s in the hospital, where he was going, because his other daughter had died in December, 1997, and I’m blessed to have this one, I know that, but his mother was home and dumb with dementia though he took his dad out golfing once a week even though his own wrist had three broken bones and there was constant pain in his own right leg what kind of post you want to replace this one, he asked I got a bunch with different colored stains light, dark, oak, whatever you want get it back here tomorrow what time does your mail run but I knew he was asking someone else to tell him when the final mailbox was going to leap right in front of his goddamned truck